Govt moves to upgrade meteorology facilities

About $450,000 (Rfw292 million) has been earmarked by the Ministry of Natural Resources and its sister agencies, with the support of development partners to upgrade meteorological and hydrological stations to boost climate data management and service delivery.The project aims at providing investment and technical support to improve the hydrological observation and data management systems in the country so as to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.The African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) initiated the project on upgrading hydro meteorological stations networks, early warning systems and capacity building in Rwanda in collaboration with the ministry.The areas of interventions of ACPC in Rwanda will include risk and vulnerability assessment and community based flood early warning system, capacity building and technical support and assessment of existing data and information systems.More work needed “We have been limited to regulatory framework putting in place those climate observing institutions without prioritising their capacity to meet users’ expectations,’’ said the Natural Resources minister Stanislas Kamanzi.“Something has been done but not enough. The more we delay, the more we’re being exposed to increasing loses.”Kamanzi was speaking yesterday in Kigali, during a workshop on the implementation of the project.According to officials from the ministry, the Rwanda Meteorology Service (RMS) is not fully meeting citizens’ expectations regarding data capture and storage.Therefore, there is a great need to build capacity in maintenance of meteorological instruments and data management in Rwanda, according to officials. The director of meteorology in RMS, John Ntaganda, said his institution needs modernisation in data management and thus new equipment and new methods through capacity building.Rwanda has currently 39 operational automatic weather observing stations and 71 operational rainfall observing stations.According to Rwanda Environment Management Authority, Rwanda is among the countries that are highly vulnerable to climate change and climate variability.The occurrence of extreme phenomena such as drought and floods has increased, and those floods lead to severe soil erosion and even landslides.Regarding hydrology, some of the gaps include design of hydraulic structures that do not take proper account of extreme weather events mainly due to lack of capacity and inadequacy of data. Many parts of Rwanda are facing flood hazards and are in need of early warning systems.

National

Govt moves to upgrade meteorology facilities